A Good Week

With work commitments again restricting volume at the beginning of the week it was a case of getting the quality in and the volume will come later when work and domestic commitments sort themselves out (that will hopefully be next week). So with some good sessions on the turbo in the evening I was ticking over quite nicely, and then an opportunity arose to get a good session in during Friday lunchtime, followed this up with a 2.45 ride with Coastal Controller on Saturday and then managed 1.45 on the turbo watching the Carling Cup Final, including 2 x 20 mins at approx 90% FTP. The Saturday ride was really enjoyable but I reckon we would have stayed drier had we gone swimming; it lashed down on a couple of occasions and I was wet absolutely everywhere! Fortunately it wasn't that cold so not too uncomfortable, although the headwind on the way home (after Jonny broke off for his run) meant it was a bit of a crawl home for me. I managed 9 hours this week so in the end it wasn't too bad.

Unfortunately, and as mentioned in my previous post, I can't make the Black Rat sportive now. We have always wanted to visit the ruins of Pompeii and Rome and an opportunity has come up that we have decided to take. I'm really looking forward to my first visit to Italy although as a fan of Italian food and wine I suspect that my waistline may suffer.

Train smart folks.

No Black Rat Sportive for me

Unfortunately I won't be able to make the Black Rat sportive now as I will be having a few days away with the family in Italy. No, the bike isn't coming with me but I might take my trainers and do some running. But then again ...

RAF Cycling and RAF Triathlon AGMs and Training Weekends

It was really good to meet so many old faces last weekend; I don't think I have been called a 'turncoat' by so many people in such a short space of time before! I really enjoyed myself although it was a real shame that Sunday morning's bike ride was cancelled due to snow. It was good to meet many of the key players in RAF Cycling and I managed to add to my kit collection by picking up a rain jacket and thermodry sleeveless jacket. The roller racing was a right laugh, although my recently increased power output was clearly too much for the bike and despite having a helper I managed to get the back wheel off the rollers (or was it my unbalanced pedal stroke?).

The most important aspect, though, was my increased motivation to ride my bike. I'm really pleased with how comfortable my training bike is and the Shimano R500 wheels roll really nicely for such reasonably priced items. I have another week of work commitments that are very likely to prevent me training at lunchtimes but I hope that by next week this busy phase of work will be behind me and I can get stuck in to a proper training programme.

I'm looking forward to training smart.

Training Summary Week 7

After Week 6 was completely written off due to a cold, Week 7 was always going to be about easing myself back into training gently to prevent a relapse, and this is exactly what I did. The sessions at the beginning of the week were easy and I increased the intensity through the week and on Friday I did an hour on the gym bike hill programme at Level 14. I headed up to Halton for the RAF Cycling & RAF Triathlon AGM/Training weekend and had a good 3 hour ride on Saturday, doing efforts on the hills and then easy cycling on the flats. Sunday should have been a similar ride with the tri club but I opened my curtains to a layer of snow and over breakfast more snow was falling and so the decision was made to cancel the ride and I headed home. I managed a little over 7 hours of training this week which is a good stepping stone up from last week and I now need to increase this in the weeks ahead.

I have also been thinking about my training programme and I reckon the 50 mile turbo TT will be introduced during March. Double the distance, double the time and double the pain. Bring it on!

A Whole Week Written Off!

Due to a cold. Not very happy I must say.

Need New Bike Tyres?

I was searching the internet looking for the best deals on some new tyres for my soon to be finished Litespeed and had scoured all the usual places, but the best deal by far was from Absolute Cycles; 2 x Continental GP4000s tyres, 700 x 23, for £47.95 delivered (Wiggle price was £62.92). I have added Absolute Cycles to my favourites and will no doubt be shopping with them again.

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Absolute-Cycles__W0QQ_armrsZ1

Ill and No Training (Fitness Test doesn't count!)

I thought I was over it when I went out on the bike on Sunday, and I felt much better in the afternoon as well. But come Monday and the dreaded lurgy was back with a vengeance. So I took Monday off completely and didn't train today, although I did do the RAF Fitness test and scored light blue on the MSFT and dark blue on both press ups and sit ups. I managed this with a head full of cold and snot; how unfit do people have to be to fail this?

I had lunch with Debs today. Fresh from her tour in Afghanistan she popped down to take back the duties of RAF Tri Secretary that I gratefully handed back to her, hopefully not in too much of a pickle (I'm sure you will all talk about me at the forthcoming training weekend and AGM!). Debs looks really well and seems very positive about everything (even cycling and running!) and we chatted about all sorts of stuff.

Hopefully my body will sort itself out in the next 48 hours so I can at least get a decent weekend of training in. I'd like to say 'Train Smart' at this point, but any sort of training would be good for me right now.

All the best.

Coastal Controller

Veteran of Ironman Germany 2006 and Marathon des Sables 2009, Jonny is now planning on conquering Ironman France 2010. He's also started blogging; see here:

http://coastalcontroller.blogspot.com/

Before you click on the link be warned - semi nudity on Page 1. Damn handsome chap though!

Training Summary Week 5

I knew that training time would be restricted this week due to work commitments but that wasn't the only thing that affected my training. I only managed to train on 4 days; one day was a planned rest day, one was lost to the aforementioned work commitments and then I went down with some type of plague on Friday evening and I lost Saturday to illness. Despite this, I managed to rack up nearly 7 hours of training, 100 miles on the bike and a new 20 minute PB on the rowing machine (4725m). Despite still feeling a little under the weather, I was out on the bike again today with Jonny Briggs and got 2.5 hours on the road, done at a relatively easy pace with some efforts on the hills.

I'm really pleased with my 2010 progress so far and have a few ideas to try out in the next couple of weeks to try and accelerate this progress. I'll let you know how it goes.

Train smart folks.